It is known to provide a refrigeration circuit comprising a condensor having a collection box, through which a refrigeration fluid flows, for example for an air conditioning installation of an automobile vehicle.
In a refrigeration circuit of this type, the refrigeration fluid in the superheated vapour phase is sent, by means of a compressor, to a condenser in which it is successively cooled or "de-superheated", condensed into a warm liquid phase, then "under-cooled" to a cold liquid phase.
The refrigeration fluid, previously condensed and cooled, is then passed, through a pressure reducing valve, to an evaporator where it exchanges heat with a flow of air to be sent into the passenger compartment of the vehicle. In the said evaporator, the refrigeration fluid is changed into the vapour phase whilst the flow of air is cooled to supply the conditioned air. The refrigeration fluid in the vapour phase leaves the evaporator to reach the compressor, and so on.
The condenser comprises in the usual manner a bundle of tubes equipped with fins and mounted between two collection boxes, one of which communicates with a reservoir.
In French patent application No. 96 03695, the applicant has suggested the use of a condenser with an integral reservoir, in which the collection box and the reservoir are delimited by the same casing. The latter comprises a cylindrical tubular wall and a separation wall disposed inside the tubular wall to delimit a collection compartment and a reservoir compartment, the tubular wall being equipped with spaced holes to receive the ends of the tubes of a bundle of tubes.
The separation wall is then slid longitudinally into the inside of the tubular wall and fixed to the latter by soldering to delimit the collection compartment and the reservoir compartment.
Recently, in French patent application No 97 00844, the applicant has suggested a different solution using a separation wall comprising a central core prolonged by a first edge region having an inwardly curved profile suitable for application against the inside of the tubular wall and for soldering to the latter and by a second edge region adapted to be introduced into a longitudinal slit in the tubular wall and to be soldered to the latter.